That praises are
without reason
lavished upon the DEAD
and that the honors
due
only to excellence
are paid to ANTIQUITY,
is a complaint
likely always to be continued by those,
who,
being able to add nothing to
truth,
hope for eminence from the
heresies of PARADOX;
or those, who,
being forced by
disappointment
upon consolatory
expedients,
are willing to hope from posterity
what the PRESENT AGE
refuses,
and flatter themselves
that the regard which is
YET DENIED BY ENVY,
will at last be bestowed by TIME.
Antiquity,
like every other
quality
that attracts the notice of
mankind,
has undoubtedly
votaries that REVERENCE
it,
not from reason,
but from PREJUDICE.
Some seem to admire
indiscriminately
whatever has been long
preserved,
without considering that TIME has sometimes cooperated
with CHANCE;
all perhaps are more willing
to honor PAST than
PRESENT
excellence;
and the mind contemplates
GENIUS
through the shades of AGE,
as the eye surveys the sun
through artificial opacity.
The great contention of
criticism
is to find
the faults of the
moderns,
and the beauties of the
ancients.
While an author is yet living
we estimate his powers
by his WORST
performance,
and when he is dead,
we rate them by
his BEST.
To works, however,
of which the EXCELLENCE
is not Absolute and
Definite,
but gradual and COMPARATIVE;
to works not raised
upon
principles Demonstrative and
Scientific,
but appealing wholly
to
Observations and Experience,
no other test can be
applied than
LENGTH of duration
and CONTINUANCE of
esteem.
What mankind have
long possessed
they have often
examined and compared;
and if they
persist to value the
possession,
it is because
frequent comparisons
have
confirmed opinion
in its favor.
As among the works of nature
no man can properly call
a river deep,
or a mountain high,
without the knowledge of
many mountains, and many
rivers,
so in the productions of
GENIUS,
nothing can be styled excellent
till it has been compared
with
other works of the same
kind.
Demonstration
immediately displays its power,
and works
tentative and experimental
must be estimated by their
proportion
to the general and
collective
ability of man,
as it is discovered
in a long succession of
ENDEAVORS.
Of the first building that was
raised,
it might with
certainty
be determined that it was
round or square;
but whether it was
spacious or lofty
must have been referred to
TIME.
The Pythagorean scale of numbers was at
once
discovered to be
perfect;
but the poems of Homer
we yet know
not
to transcend the common
limits
of human intelligence,
but by remarking,
that nation after nation,
and century after century,
has been able to do little more
than transpose his
incidents,
new-name his characters,
and paraphrase his
sentiments.
The reverence due to
writings that have
LONG SUBSISTED
arises therefore not from any
credulous confidence
in the superior wisdom of past
ages,
or gloomy persuasion
of the degeneracy of mankind,
but is the consequence
of
acknowledged and indubitable
positions,
that what has been
LONGEST KNOWN
has been
MOST CONSIDERED,
and what is most considered
is best
UNDERSTOOD.